From a commercial viewpoint, it is important to be able to evaluate the performance of content provided online, e.g., an advertisement (“ad”), game, music video, television show, etc. Known systems allow for computer users to manually rate content, e.g., by selecting a suitable rating value, as well as receive questionnaires or interviews as part of an effectiveness tracking scheme.
Techniques for measuring a computer user's emotions, e.g., by facial features tracking or the like, have been incorporated into methods of evaluating the performance of video content. For example, an imaging unit, such as a webcam, can be used to capture the facial features of a computer user as he or she watches video content. The captured images can be processed to yield information about the computer user's emotions at certain points in the video, which is valuable feedback as to the performance of the video.
The video and the captured images can be transmitted over the Internet, whereby the feedback can be automatically gathered from a plurality of remote computer users. For example, US 2012/0222057 discusses a system in which a video is embedded in a web-enabled interface, which is arranged to collect mental state data for a computer user who watches the embedded video. The web enabled interface itself can be distributed, e.g., by sending an appropriate URL to a plurality of prospective viewers.